Rangel: Is Wendy Davis what Texas Democrats hope?

ENRIQUE RANGEL

Sunday

Sep 29, 2013 at 2:48 PM

One of the worst-kept secrets since the Texas Legislature adjourned on Aug. 5 should finally be out on Thursday: Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis is expected to announce she will seek her party's nomination for governor in the March 4 primary.

Although so far there has been only one poll suggesting Abbott would defeat Davis - released shortly after her June 25 filibuster of a strict abortion bill the Republican-dominated Legislature passed three weeks later anyway - the conventional wisdom in Austin is that she does not have a prayer.

After all, Davis would run in a red state where no Democrat has won a statewide office since 1994, and against a well-known opponent with a war chest of more than $20 million.

All of this explains why some Republicans are just as happy as Democrats that Davis has apparently decided to run for governor, instead of seeking re-election in her Senate District 10.

"Great news," tweeted a leading conservative activist and re-tweeted by a House Republican. Davis "is leaving #TxLege Senate, and has chosen to be the DEMs sacrificial gubernatorial candidate."

But with more than 13 months left before next year's general election, some Davis supporters - and even a few Republicans - wonder if such jubilation is premature.

After all, even before she was first elected to the Texas Senate in 2008, some Republicans have unsuccessfully tried to derail her political career.

Let's start with the 2008 election when, as a Fort Worth city councilwoman, Davis took on Kenneth "Kim" Brimer, a stocky, white-haired senator who used to walk around with an unlit cigar in his mouth.

Two months before the Democratic and Republican primaries, three firefighters - apparently acting on Brimer's behalf - challenged Davis' eligibility in court on grounds that she did not give up her city council seat by the filing deadline, as the law required.

After a district court threw out the lawsuit and Davis won her party's nomination, Brimer filed a suit of his own, which included party leaders as defendants. But the results were the same, and then she narrowly defeated him in the election.

Incidentally, when it became apparent Brimer was fighting for his political life, he received generous campaign contributions from fellow Republicans, including Robert Duncan of Lubbock and Kel Seliger of Amarillo. Then came the 2011 redistricting plan the Republican-dominated Legislature approved over the strong objections of the Democratic minority and civil rights organizations.

As Doug Davis - clerk of the Senate Redistricting Committee Seliger chaired - later told the federal court in San Antonio refereeing the two-year redistricting fight, one of the main objectives was a Republican-majority District 10 in which Davis could not win in 2012. But Davis went on to defeat a challenge from state Rep. Mark Shelton, though narrowly too.

Most recently, with the help of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, her Republican colleagues in the Senate tried to stop her 11-hour filibuster.

But even Republicans agree now that largely because of the historic meltdown in the Senate - when hundreds of pro-abortion protesters in the gallery virtually paralyzed the chamber during the final, but critical, 15 minutes of the day - GOP lawmakers helped make Davis an overnight political star.

"Wendy Davis should never have had the floor that day," Sen. Dan Patrick said in a recent Republican debate. "There are many ways we could have stopped that from happening."

The Houston lawmaker and two former senators, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, are challenging Dewhurst, the presiding officer of the Senate, in the primary.

So, for some Democrats like state party chairman Gilberto Hinojosa, the moral of the story is this: It's too soon to write off Wendy Davis.

If anyone can end the 20-year Democratic drought in Texas it is her, they say.